An inquest into a fatal shooting on board one of the Navy's nuclear powered submarines has been told that police investigating the incident were so shocked by binge drinking among the crew that they wrote to military authorities to highlight their worries.

The Ministry of Defence has awarded £2.7 billion of new contracts for construction of its planned fleet of Astute class attack submarines, despite costs overruns, severe delays, and concerns over quality of work on the vessels.

HMS Astute, the flagship for the Royal Navy's newest class of nuclear powered submarines, is reportedly too slow to carry out some of its duties, is subject to leaking and is beginning to corrode in places according to the Guardian newspaper.

Secret information inadvertently released by the Ministry of Defence reveals that the reactors powering the UK's nuclear submarine fleet are twice as likely to suffer a catastrophic accident as civil nuclear reactors and reactors on US Navy submarines.

Nuclear Information Service is calling for the Royal Navy's nuclear propulsion programme to be included within the scope of the Health and Safety Executive's review of the UK nuclear industry following the Fukushima nuclear accident.

The UK's nuclear submarines are powered by pressurised water reactors (PWR) but, according to an official report, the Navy's nuclear reactor programme “currently falls short of current relevant good practice.